U.S. Joins Axis of Evil
Our own nation is now on the wrong side of the Russia-Ukraine War.
Twenty-three years ago, President George W. Bush delivered his "axis of evil" speech, his first State of the Union Address after 9/11.
"States like these," he said, referring to Iraq, Iran, and North Korea, "and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world."
He used the word "evil" four more times in that speech, and added:
America will lead by defending liberty and justice because they are right and true and unchanging for all people everywhere.
No nation owns these aspirations, and no nation is exempt from them. We have no intention of imposing our culture. But America will always stand firm for the non-negotiable demands of human dignity: the rule of law; limits on the power of the state; respect for women; private property; free speech; equal justice; and religious tolerance.
America will take the side of brave men and women who advocate these values around the world, including the Islamic world, because we have a greater objective than eliminating threats and containing resentment. We seek a just and peaceful world beyond the war on terror.
Critics bristled at Bush's implicit American exceptionalism, a critique echoed by our current Republican president.
In a February 2017 interview with Fox News Bill O'Reilly, just as President Donald Trump was starting his first term, he said he respected Russian President Vladimir Putin.
"But he's a killer, though. Putin's a killer," O'Reilly objected.
"There are a lot of killers. We’ve got a lot of killers. What do you think? Our country’s so innocent?" Trump replied in defense of Putin.
Trump has frequently expressed admiration for Putin and other dictatorial leaders. Now at the beginning of his second term, the U.S. is abandoning those "brave men and women" that Bush talked about.
Last month, former Democrat congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, who has long held similar admiration of dictators and helped spread Kremlin talking points, was sworn in as Trump's national security director.
On Feb. 18, U.S. and Russian officials met in Saudi Arabia for what they described as "peace talks," even though Ukraine was excluded from the meeting. After the meeting, Trump falsely claimed that Ukraine started the war.
On Friday, Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance met with President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky and again blamed him for the war with Russia in a heated exchange. “You’ve allowed yourself to be in a very bad position,” Trump said, as if it was Zelensky's fault that Putin invaded his country.
On Sunday, Sec. of Defense Pete Hegseth halted all cyberoperations against Russia.
On Tuesday, Trump suspended all military aid to Ukraine.
Today, the Trump administration announced plans to revoke the legal status of 240,000 Ukrainians who fled the conflict and are living in the U.S.
This is a tough pill to swallow, but we, the United States of America, under the leadership of our new president, are siding with Putin's Russia, a leading member of the current axis of evil.
To stay grounded in these confusing times, remember that being pro-America does not require us to always defend American government. Being pro-America means opposing our president when he betrays American values.
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Eric Swalwell, a Democratic representative from California, said his Republican colleagues were “terrified” of crossing Trump not only because of the negative impact on their political careers, but also from anxiety that it might provoke physical threats that could cause personal upheaval and require them to hire round-the-clock security as protection.
Religion in Public: “The Reactionary Religious Reengagement of Young Men”
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Anne Applebaum: “The Rise of the Brutal American”
In just a few minutes, the behavior of Donald Trump and J. D. Vance created a brand-new stereotype for America: not the quiet American, not the ugly American, but the brutal American. Whatever illusions Europeans ever had about Americans—whatever images lingered from old American movies, the ones where the good guys win, the bad guys lose, and honor defeats treachery—those are shattered. Whatever fond memories remain of the smiling GIs who marched into European cities in 1945, of the speeches that John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan made at the Berlin Wall, or of the crowds that once welcomed Barack Obama, those are also fading fast.
Quite apart from their politics, Trump and Vance are rude. They are cruel. They berated and mistreated a guest on camera, and then boasted about it afterward, as if their ugly behavior achieved some kind of macho “win.” They announced that they would halt transfers of military equipment to Ukraine, and hinted at ending sanctions on Russia, the aggressor state. In his speech to Congress last night, Trump once again declared that America would “get” Greenland, which is a part of Denmark—a sign that he intends to run roughshod over other allies too.
These are the actions not of the good guys in old Hollywood movies, but of the bad guys. If Reagan was a white-hatted cowboy, Trump and Vance are Mafia dons. The chorus of Republican political leaders defending them seems both sinister and surprising to Europeans too. “I never thought Americans would kowtow like that,” one friend told me, marveling.
George Will: “This is American greatness only if you have a MAGA-nifying glass”
Do Rubio’s muscles cramp during prolonged genuflections? He is, however, right, in his fashion: No president has ever before “stood up for America” this way, by turning U.S. foreign policy 180 degrees, away from supporting democracies toward rewarding war criminals. (Nine days before Donald Trump’s Oval Office berating of Ukraine’s president, the Financial Times website presented video of Russians murdering unresisting Ukrainian prisoners of war.) In a future X post, Rubio might elaborate on how courage featured in this reversal. Or in Trump’s pique about what he considers Ukraine’s insufficiently reiterated gratitude for the assistance Ukraine received from the Biden administration.
So smitten is Trump with Vladimir Putin (“genius”), he cannot fathom that the Russian leader surely considers him a weakling. Putin knows that Trump knows, but is too servile to say, who invaded whom on Feb. 24, 2022.
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